Category: Philosophy

You would imagine martial arts masters to look dangerous. Somehow we expect a fierce and grave personality. Maybe we have seen too many martial arts movies. Maybe we don’t understand Mizu no kokoro. Fact is: most of the masters I met are not like this. When I met Fritz Nöpel, 10th degree black belt and Germanys…

Recently I got asked: “What is the most valuable lesson from martial training for your career as a manager?” The things I believe I have learned in those 25+ years briefly flashed through my mind. But without hesitation I answered: “Execution in risky situations. Without excuses or evasions.” Let me explain! Let’s face it! I learned…

I like a healthy dose of self-criticism (more on that later). That is probably why it took me quite a while to discover the following anti-pattern: certain coworkers seem to show loads of self-criticism. They often say: “we do this wrong, we do that wrong!” But when you look closer you find that by “we” they…

Sun Tzu is arguably the most well known eastern strategist. His famous book “The art of war” has almost become a part of pop culture. The book holds thirteen chapters full of advice on warfare. But Sun Tzu’s most important instruction in my opinion is: know yourself! Lost in translation I noticed I have not…

Tons of books have been written on leadership. There are dozens of styles and concepts, each with a nice name tag attached. Maybe that is why so many managers are confused about ground rules of leadership today.  Here is my leadership rule #1: People should feel better when doing the right thing than when doing…

A memory A few years back I watched a documentary about an entry exam for the sports university in Cologne. A middle-aged gymnastics professor commented on an exercise performed by a young man: “It is a pity! That boy has not learned this movement pattern in his youth. We know from research that he will…

With the ‘lean’ and ‘agile’ movements middle management positions have become increasingly difficult. As a middle manager you are in the sandwich in every way. Most stressful is that you have to navigate 3 loyalty spheres or else you will loose your company, your team or yourself. 3 loyalty spheres explained Loyalty to your company…

It’s a strange thing to be in the middle of my life. The urge to say ‘Mommy and daddy, look what I can do already’ has long now subsided. Instead I am beginning to suspect that not far from now my kids will start to ask the universal question: ‘why, daddy?’ Maybe I am projecting…

Hello World! As this is my first blog post I might as well explain the title ‘Kikentai Management’. ‘Ki Ken Tai Ichi’ is a japanese phrase commonly used in the context of sword fighting (or martial arts in general). It refers to the unity (ichi = one) of mind/spirit (ki = energy), tool/weapon (ken =…